by Mark Simos
We can also consider a complementary texture, where the vocal melody maintains a held tone against changing chords—in effect, a “pedal point melody.” This texture echoes the contrapuntal idea of oblique motion, where one voice is still as another moves. The quiescent melodic line spotlights or moves to the foreground the root or bass line motion of the chords, which in turn recolor the harmonic interpretations of the held melody note. Using a chanting tone melodic contour is also a good strategy for focusing attention on lyric content. Rhythmic effects are often used in pedal-point melody for additional interest.
Great songwriters and composers in all styles and genres have used this texture to compelling effect: from Antonio Carlos Jobim’s classic “One Note Samba” to the opening phrases of Donovan’s “Catch the Wind.” It’s a sound now iconic in the music of contemporary acoustic singer-songwriters. A simple example is shown below. Chord roots are indicated in the bottom staff. The “pedal-point” melody creates pleasing effects, as the held C note shifts between chord tone and non-chord tone roles against the chord of the moment: 5 of the F, 6 of the ED, 3 of the AD, 2 of the BD. A bit more interest comes through varying the rhythmic pattern across the four bars.
FIG. 7.2. Pedal-Point Melody. Relatively dependent on chord progression.
A pedal-point melody can hold notes on different scale degrees relative to underlying chords, forming varying chord tone and non-chord relations. Here’s another example over the same chords, with the held note forming successively a 2, 3, major 7, and 6 (resolving to a 5) against the underlying chords:
FIG. 7.3. Non-Chord Tone Melodic Pedal Point
The biggest risk in pedal-point textures (of either variety) is when they’re used as an improvisational “cheat,” rather than a compositional choice, to achieve a specific emotional or narrative effect. But used with intent, they offer a powerful technique for spotlighting, and especially for sectional contrast.
Ostinato Melodies
An extension of the pedal-point melody strategy sets up a repeating melodic figure or ostinato against a sequence of changing chords. As with a single-note pedal, the repeating melodic figure is recolored by the shifting interpretation against the changing chords. This recoloring is more effective when the melodic figure isn’t too closely tied to a single chordal area (as with a scalar passage or arpeggiated chord).
Often, repeated rhythms help reinforce the ostinato pattern, as in figure 7.4. Here the E note in the repeated ostinato figure takes on shifting non-chord tone roles over each chord, until it resolves as the third of the C chord.
FIG. 7.4. Melodic Ostinato over Changing Chords
This strategy extends a sense of oblique motion to the border between melody per se and phrase structure—not the melodic note, but the melodic figure or motive remains fixed as the chords move. The example shows a typical template: the melodic motive is varied (by truncation) at the end of the phrase, setting an aaab melodic structure against the through-written chordal line.
A melody that shifts in range and/or contour against a cyclic chord progression within a section inverts this texture. As repetition or cycles are brought to the foreground in either melody or harmony, a secondary “pace” is created at the motivic level. This pace interacts with other rhythmic aspects of the song.
Parallel Textures
The contrapuntal device of similar or even parallel motion is reflected when vocal melody follows a melodic aspect of the chord progression. The paralleling can track various melodic threads in the harmony. Also, as with pedal-point melody, the vocal melody can “track” the chord melody at varying intervals, such as at the third or fifth, or with non-chord tones. The most audible, and potentially problematic, case is when vocal melody sounds or doubles chord roots. Figure 7.5 shows two largely parallel-motion melodic settings for a chord progression: one doubling chord roots, the other hovering around the 3rd of the chords.
FIG. 7.5. Melody Moving in Parallel to Chord Root Tones
As the second example above shows, this type of similar or parallel motion might be disguised by activity in the melody, yet still contribute a weakness to the overall texture. The vocal melody can be very active in relation to chord movement, yet still be moving in a harmonically parallel way. This is a case where vocal prowess in particular needs to be applied with caution. Vocalist-writers will easily add flourishes around a melody that still essentially parallels the harmony. This may yield a compelling vocal performance, but a less interesting melody and song.
Discerning the underlying relationship requires distinguishing anchor tones and ornamental tones in the vocal melody. Anchor tones are notes spotlighted by falling on main metric stressed beats, or on beats where chords change (even if metrically weak). Ornamental tones can embroider around anchor tones, but the relations of anchor tones to the underlying chords knit the bones of the song. In general, less stable tones or non-chord tones suggest more independence between melody and harmony. But this can be deceptive. A parallel voice-leading texture can be created even with (usually mild) non-chord tone intervals, if they’re maintained between melody and chord roots for an extended passage.
A good technique to evaluate if your melody is moving against the chords in too parallel a fashion is to annotate the scale degree (whether chord tone or non-chord tone) formed by each melody note falling on important metric positions where the chords change. If you discover a long series of melody notes chiming in unisons or thirds with the progression’s roots, you may have a problem on the “parallel bars.”
Effects and Uses of Parallel Motion
Similar or parallel motion in any materials intensifies motion or thickens
texture. It’s a strong effect, best used when you intend to reinforce that movement. For example, you can use parallel motion to create a distinct, strong texture in one song section; then shift texture in another section, supporting cohesion within and contrast between the sections.
Risks with Parallel Motion
Where pedal-point melody tends to keep melodies in a very confined range, paralleling root motion with vocal melody tends to introduce larger leaps in the melodic range. In writing the melody, you can transpose these intervals in various ways (just as bass players make register and octave choices, even in a largely chord root-oriented style, that dramatically affect the shape of the bass line). Still, what works well as a chord sequence, or a “melody of chord root tones,” may not translate well into vocal melody (and vice versa). A complementary problem can arise with chord progressions written in too “melodic” a way. Overuse of step intervals in root motion, and particularly sequences of scalar motion in chord roots (e.g., IV III– II– I) can be a sign of thinking too “melodically” with your chords.
Also, as with pedal-point or ostinato textures, similar or parallel motion between melody and harmony can be a bit of a “cheat” in the writing process. If you play your instrument and compose and sing your melody at the same time, you’re likely to slip into parallel phrasing simply because it’s hard to improvise two independent ideas at the same time, like rubbing your harmonic tummy while patting your melodic head. The results may not suit the expressive needs of the song. If a progression is not intrinsically interesting, seconding it in vocal melody won’t necessarily improve it. (It’s a bit like those jingoistic tourists in a foreign country, who think shouting in English rather than speaking in English will somehow make their meaning clearer.)
Similar rather than parallel motion, parallel motion maintained at non-chord tone intervals to chord roots, parallel motion following interior guide-tone lines rather than root tones, and parallel motion to root tones in the presence of a strong bass-line idea in the accompaniment, are all ways to mitigate the overdramatizing effects of parallel melody/harmony texture. Or—as with any textural strategy—when all else fails, rewrite.
Lazy Melodic Lines against Chords
Another texture, prevalent when setting to melody from a chord progression, creates a vocal melodic line moving in a “laz
y” or “least motion” kind of way, with a preference for repeated notes, small intervals or step-wise motion, and frequent changes of direction. In a nutshell, to create a lazy line:
Pick a starting note against your first chord—usually (but not always) a chord tone.
Move only when you have to (the “lazy” part of the strategy) in response to changing chords. At each new chord, stay on the same tone or make a small intervallic move—usually to a chord tone relative to the new chord.
Move directionally in ways that maximize balance, so the melody tends to circle around the initial tone, extending the overall range as little as possible.
Held notes will feel like a pedal-point texture; moving notes may parallel root motion of chords, especially chord moves by seconds or thirds. But the lazy pull toward minimal melodic movement fights against the tendency to parallel chord roots when the roots move by intervals of a fourth (or fifth). If melodic contour stays with common or close tones, the relation of melody note to chord root changes, as in the following small example over a cliché chord sequence (I IV I V) cycled twice, where the relation shifts from 3 to root to 3 to 5.
FIG. 7.6. Melody Dependent on a Harmonic Progression
Though my term “lazy” may sound vaguely judgmental, this is actually a time-honored strategy useful in many situations. Since smaller intervals are generally easier to sing than larger leaps, they yield more singable melodies with better continuity. Directional changes circling around the starting tone keep the overall melodic range confined. Thus, it’s a natural strategy for singer/writers who are not very confident about their range. It also approximates the techniques harmony singers use to find harmony parts by ear: find your “tonal zone,” then move lazily. (For harmony singing, also avoid doubling notes of neighboring voices.)
But melodies you find this way are not always interesting in contour or shape, or vocally challenging and dramatic in range or intervallic variety. They can tend to “drift” or “undulate.” Mostly, these problems arise when the melodic idea is not just responsive to but too dependent on the chord progression.
There’s nothing wrong with using lazy melody; just don’t be lazy about it!
Using only chord tones is not fundamental to this texture, but it’s often a characteristic of the style applied in a less intentional way. As with the strategies seen earlier, it’s also possible to rely too much on easy non-chord tone relations (singer-songwriters seem to love 2s and 9s these days), providing a kind of surface tension but not real interest or melody–harmony independence.
By nature, this melodic texture, being both “chord-led” and “lazy” (minimizing melodic activity), spotlights the chords. Applied to stock or cliché chord sequences, as in figure 7.6, this can lead to a bland overall texture. Providing some rhythmic interest then becomes almost essential, such as the anticipations and slight variations shown.
On the other hand, this effect of bringing chords to the foreground can be useful when the chord progression does hold intrinsic interest, especially with edgy or surprising chord moves. In these circumstances, lazy melodic lines can serve as voice-leading “glue,” smoothing over otherwise disorienting harmonic changes.
Exercise 7.1. Lazy Melody over Crazy Chords17
Write an 8- to 12-chord progression, choosing freely and somewhat randomly among a mixed palette of major, minor, diminished, and augmented triads, not diatonic to a single key or mode. For the purposes of this exercise, the effect of the progression on its own should be as random and disorienting as possible. Get as wacky as you like!
Now write a “lazy” melody to the progression. Exploit common tones where they occur in chord transitions, or move lazily to the nearest chord tone in the next chord. You can use only chord tones for each chord of the moment, or let lazy voice leading suggest non-chord tone relations by holding chord tones against the next change or anticipating chords. Start in turn with each note of the first chord, and move lazily (“drift”) up or down, or let the melody undulate around the starting note. This yields a variety of distinct melodic “strands” to explore. Compare the effect of the progression on its own and with each of these “smoothing” melodies. Since the chords are not (intentionally) related by key or functional progression, you can also reverse (i.e., retrograde) such a progression and melody, and/or rotate it to start on a different chord. Music for haunted calliopes and zombie movies…. Loads of fun!
Chord-Driven Melodies
Another common melody–harmony texture could be characterized as “chord-driven melody.” These melodies move more freely and energetically than lazy voice leading. Since the technique is freer with overall range and intervallic motion, it can yield more vocally engaging and dramatic melodies. (After all, unless we’re singing “Up a Lazy River,” we don’t want our vocalists to sound lazy!)
Like lazy voice-led melody, though, these more active chord-led melodies are also locked to a preconceived chordal substrate that’s directly audible in the melody, often to less than satisfying effect. Play such a melody without chordal accompaniment, and you’ll still hear harmony strongly implied. Some telltales of chord-driven melody are a preponderance of scalar steps or skips forming arpeggiated chords, and anchor tones that are mostly chord tones. You can’t write a melody that completely avoids these kinds of figures, but they dominate the texture in chord-driven melodic lines. There’s also a tendency towards a busy, florid, or notey pace relationship between melody and harmony, with steady propulsive rhythms in both facets.
Like lazy melody, chord-driven melody tends to arise when chords are written first and you set melody to those chords. The busy melody can be an attempt to create interest over a relatively dull progression or a reaction to a progression with lots of its own twists and turns. In the latter case—with busy, complex chords—the melody is often tied to the chords simply because compositionally, we’re struggling to keep up with them. In this sense, chord-driven melody is less like part-singing in a choral setting, and more similar to melodic instrumental soloing over chord changes. The danger is that such melodies, through being locked too closely to the chords, can lack melodic narrative or flow.
Figure 7.7 is a chord-driven melody of this kind, written over a busier chord progression than our earlier examples:
FIG. 7.7. Freely-Moving Melody Locked to a Chord Progression
This melody has reasonable range and intervallic motion for vocal melody, and displays some motivic interest—such as the ascending passage in bar 1 echoed, with a rhythmic variation, in bar 2. But it feels and sounds “chordy,” a bit busy and instrumental. Many of the scalar passages are passing-tone elaborations of chord arpeggio “skeletons” woven throughout the melody. The few stressed non-chord tones, e.g., the appoggiaturas in the middle of bars 2 and 3, resolve quickly to chord tones. That gives the melody the feel of being mostly “tugged along” by the chords, sometimes pulling, but without its own thread or line. To a jazz musician, it might sound like an amateurish solo.
Even when writing melody first in process, we can wind up writing chord-driven melodies, because we’re instinctively hearing chord progressions in our mind’s ear. Since these chords are almost subliminal, they’re more likely to be “stock” or cliché rather than progressions with intrinsic interest. Now, we have the effect of bad melodic soloing, but at least over banal chord changes—woo-hoo! Chord-driven melodies are typical of writers with more of an instrumental background, and they can tend to move in the direction of instrumental melodies. In the roots music world, many recently composed fiddle tunes sound like this—often a sign of thinking chord progression first, then filling in melody over chords. (As a fiddle tune composer or “tunesmith” as well as songwriter, I can say these are generally not my favorite new fiddle tunes.) Improvising soloists who know a progression well can anticipate the chords enough to make the melody sound like it’s at least pulling rather than being pulled by the chords, but the horse is still hitched to the wagon.
Two complementary strategies
can help you move beyond limitations of harmony-led melodic textures:
When working from chords to melody, make ample use of non-chord tones, especially on metrically strong positions. Don’t use these simply to be contrary to the harmony. Find melodic lines that make their own sense as contours and narratives. Let these lines cross against and “fight” chords with momentary tensions, and don’t shy away from them.
Conversely, to move beyond writing only to preconceived chord progressions when working melody first, practice writing melodies over a tonic drone. The drone can be arhythmic or pulsed, a single note or octave or thickened by a 1–5 voicing, or even a single-chord rhythmic riff (though denser chord structures will influence your melody). Focus on the varied effects of stability/instability and tone tendencies in melody alone, relative to the tonal center and key/mode. This practice will gradually increase your ability to write melodies that move more independently, even in the presence of a chord progression. To paraphrase a jazz musicians’ dictum: Play (or in this case, write melody to) the key, not the chord. Your goal can be a melody that stands alone in the final texture of the song, without chordal accompaniment: either melodies over a drone texture or true a cappella songs. Or use this as a process tool for early melodic sketches, adding chords later.
Independent Tonal Melody
In his seminal book Melody in Songwriting (Berklee Press, 2000), Jack Perricone introduced the notion of independent melody in the context of songwriting: as a melody sufficiently well formed to be interesting, engaging, and memorable without harmonic accompaniment. Contrast a piece like “One Note Samba” (mentioned earlier in the context of “pedal-point” melodies) with “Over the Rainbow.” In the former, melodic interest is created through interaction with the harmony. The latter tune stands on its own, with intrinsic melodic interest. Unlike a chord-driven melody, its contour with its varied leaps and scalar passages is memorable, expressive to sing. This expressive contour is inherently evocative—seeming to contain or echo the narrative theme, imagery, and character of the song. Thus, this melody is independent in the sense of “distinct and memorable.” It doesn’t require the presence of chords to be effective, and could even be sung beautifully a cappella. Note it’s not a superior piece of music to “One Note Samba”; it’s a different type of tune. “One Note Samba” uses its chanting-tone melody just as artfully.